enrietta Maria (1609-69), the youngest daughter of Henry IV of France and Marie de Medici. She married Charles I of England, who agreed, in the marriage contract, to relieve the English Catholics, but failed to effect the Queen’s wishes. Between 1629 and 1639 she opposed Laud’s proclamation against Roman Catholic recusants, and raised money for the royal cause in the bishops’ wars (1639). She encouraged the army plot, attempted to save Strafford, and urged Charles to arrest the five members. From 1644 to 1660 she lived in France. See Taylor’s Life of Queen Henrietta Maria (1905). [World Wide Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1935]

Henrietta Maria (1609-69), queen consort of England, the wife of King Charles I and mother of Charles II. She was the daughter of Henry IV of France and Marie de Médicis. Henrietta Maria’s brother, Louis XIII, king of France, consented in 1624 to her marriage to Charles, then Prince of Wales, on the condition that the English laws directed against Roman Catholics be revised; the marriage took place, but the laws were not revised. Because Henrietta Maria engaged in political intrigue to aid the Roman Catholic cause, the queen greatly increased the unpopularity of her husband. In 1642, after the outbreak of the English Revolution, she went to the Continent to secure assistance for the Royalists. The following year she returned with money and joined Charles at Oxford. The situation grew worse for the Royalists, however, and in 1644 Henrietta Maria fled to France. She continued to solicit aid for Charles until his execution in 1649. After the restoration of Charles II in 1660 she was awarded a parliamentary grant and permission to live in England; she returned to France in 1665. [Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia]

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